Following a new path

[Isaac Malus]

So my friend was out buying Christmas presents the other day and ended up in a book store and buying all the books on pathfinder he could find. Now after reading it for the past few days he wants to run a PF game. How can I expect to adapt from my 3.5 experience should I be expecting more ridiculous classes like the gunslinger? How is the system, archtypes etc? Balanced out? :smallconfused:

[Yora]

Overall, nothing really changed that much. What you still should do is read again every feat and spell you want to pick for your character before you do so, since there are lots of small changes in many places.
I'd say overall, playing "normal" classes has become more interesting and fun. Lots of Multiclassing and adding Prestige Classes is possible, but will probably be less common than in 3.5e.

[Isaac Malus]

Oh really? Base classes have become more entertaining? Sweet, though that alchemist class felt like it was calling to me...:smallsmile:

[CTrees]

There's a handbook here, somewhere, for the basic changes. Some things are really not obvious. For instance, there's no penalty for buying cross class skills, you don't get 4x skill points at level one (instead, the first time you take a given class skill, you get a +3 bonus to those checks), and any class can take ranks in any skill. Or, by RAW, Hide in Plain Sight generally not allowing for new sneak attacks to be made in combat. There are a fair handful of little tweaks, which won't work exactly the way you expect them too.

Also, reread most spells before you try to use them. Those were tweaked more, especially at low levels.

EDIT: One more thing - you can apply multiple archetypes to a single class, as long as you aren't giving up the same class feature multiple times. For instance, a Barbarian could take both Drunken Brute and Savage Barbarian, but not Drunken Brute and Titan Mauler (as both archetypes require giving up Fast Movement).

[Yora]

When you have something specific in mind, you can look up the rules for it in the SRD. http://www.d20pfsrd.com/
The downside is that it's often difficult to see on first glance which stuff is from what book and you might not always know what stuff your GM will use in the campaign and what not. Though there's usually a small note somewhere that says "This ability appeared in Advanced Players Guide" or something like that.
You should check out the Base Classes that are not Core Classes, since they are all entirely new.

I'd say the major changes are Skills and Combat Maneuvers. Skills are easy to get, but Combat Maneuvers are something entirely new, even though it does essentially the same things you did in 3.5e. Just easier to remember.